 | Last login: 27 hours agoM Henri is a guy from Stockholm, Sweden. Training in mathematics, sinology, linguistics, psychiatry. Interested in the natural sciences and technology, in politics and philosophy, and in what makes people - both as individuals and as members of larger groups - tick.... |
 Share This- Box clever: Singapores magic formula for maths success -...
 Jul 2, 5:28am  (1 review) uk, education, mathematics, singapore http://www.independent.co.uk/news/educat... If only those who bear the political responsibility for education programmes in the schools here in Sweden could learn from the experience of Singapore ! Alas, our minister of education is a former Major, who seems to believe that anything other than rote and drill - and in particular, having fun while learning - is mere 'fluff', and not at all the sort of thing that Swedish schools need. In parliamentary democracies, it is said, a people gets the government it deserves - but I fail to understand what enormous sins we Swedes have committed to deserve the government with which we now find ourselves saddled....
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- The World Finance Crisis &38; the American Mission - The New York Review...
- Jun 30, 11:08am (1 review) economics, china, politics, usa http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22898
 Mr Skidelsky's last paragraph, in particular, bears repeating :
A willingness by the US government to end macroeconomic imbalances thus depends on its willingness to accept a much more plural world--one in which other centers of power in Europe, China, Japan, Latin America, and the Middle East assume responsibility for their own security, and in which the rules of the game for a world order that can preserve the peace while effectively tackling the challenges posed by terrorism, climate change, and abuse of human rights are negotiated and not imposed. Whether, even under Obama, the US is willing to accept such a political rebalancing of the world is far from obvious. It will require a huge mental realignment in the United States. The financial crash has disclosed the need for an economic realignment. But it will not happen until the US renounces its imperial mission.
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- Op-Ed Columnist - Betraying the Planet - NYTimes.com
- Jun 29, 1:58am (1 review) politics, science, global-warming, climatology http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinio...
- It is, of course, possible to deny the reality of climate change - if one lives in a well insulated house, never goes out the door, and never looks out the window. Otherwise, Upton Sinclair's dictum applies :
It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it.
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- A Cartoon—By Mr. Fish (Harpers Magazine)
- Jun 27, 8:51am (1 review) politics, usa, barack-hussein-obama, campaign-promises http://harpers.org/archive/2009/06/hbc-9...
 Mr Obama may well laugh, as he reviews the campaign promises that remain just that, promises. But others, who allowed themselves to believe what so obviously was not the case - that Mr Obama would bring significant change to the direction of the US government - are more likely to cry....
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- Op-Ed Columnist - No Recovery in Sight - NYTimes.com
- Jun 27, 4:18am (1 review) economics, class-warfare, politics, usa, unemployment http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/opinio...
Economists are currently spreading the word that the recession may end sometime this year, but the unemployment rate will continue to climb. That's not a recovery. That's mumbo jumbo.
Well said, Mr Herbert ! And it applies not merely to the United States, but equally here in Sweden and in Europe as a whole. Whose economy is it that can be said to be recovering, when even official tallies, which chronically underestimate the true situation, show unemployment figures of over 10 % ?...
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- Technology Review: Waterproof Lithium-Air Batteries
- Jun 26, 8:35am
 (1 review) science, engineering, electricity, batteries, lithium http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/2... 
This sounds exciting ! If only we can avoid that the technique be used to develop ever more insidious and sophisticated means of killing people....
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- Obama must call off this folly before Afghanistan becomes his Vietnam...
- Jun 26, 5:40am (1 review) uk, politics, usa, afghanistan, sweden http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...
- 'If good intentions ever paved a road to hell, they are doing so in Afghanistan.'
Just what 'good intentions' pray ? The intentions of the US government in Afghanistan are no more good than were the intentions of its predecessors in Indo-China. On the other hand, US intentions - and actions - in Afghanistan (with the kind help of chief flunky, the UK, and a lot of smaller flunkies, like my own country Sweden) are certainly paving the road to hell, so Mr Jenkins has got it half right. And after all, building and paving roads goes under the rubric 'economic development', which is always, we are told, to the good, no matter where the roads lead - so in this sense perhaps US, British, ..., Swedish, ... intentions are good after all...
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- Op-Ed Columnist - Who Are We? - NYTimes.com
- Jun 23, 8:03am (1 review) law, obama-administration, politics, usa, torture http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/opinio...
- As usual, Mr Herbert's column is spot on with regard to important issues and, moreover, for the most part refreshing free of that «we are better than this» rhetoric which may sound good, but is hardly convincing to anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of US history. But I started when reading the following paragraph :
Americans should recoil as one against the idea of preventive detention, imprisoning people indefinitely, for years and perhaps for life, without charge and without giving them an opportunity to demonstrate their innocence.
If I understand the matter aright, US jurisprudence is not based upon people «demonstrat[ing] their innocence», but rather upon the prosecution demonstrating, to a jury of their peers - any chance that people held in Guantánamo or any of the other US torture centres 'round the world will be tried before a jury of their peers ? - their guilt beyond any reasonable doubt, and without the use of torture to elict confessions that may well be false. Requiring an accused to demonstrate his or her innocence is, like torturing him or her to elicit information or for other raisons d'état, is to take a long step on the primrose path to tyranny....
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- LRB · Perry Anderson: An Invertebrate Left
- Jun 23, 4:39am (1 review) history, left, gramsci, politics, italy http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n05/ande01_.htm...
 I am, alas, ignorant of the details of the Italian Left's history, but after entering this caveat, I must say that Perry Anderson's incisive analysis of its past failures and present problems is perhaps the best I've yet read on the subject....
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- Obama in Cyberspace | The Public Domain |
- Jun 23, 3:21am (1 review) law, politics, usa, intellectual-property, copyright http://www.thepublicdomain.org/2009/06/1...
 «But there is always the soothing relief of hearing the announcement that yet another Bush policy has been overturned, even if the announcement generally comes with a pragmatic footnote. America is now against torture again. (But also against prosecuting those who tortured and against declassifying photos of abuse.) Guantánamo will be closed down. (Though we don't know quite where the inhabitants will go.) The United States will do something about climate change. (Even though the actual plan is full of corporate giveaways.)»
The problem here is that Mr Obama and his administration are pursuing more or less the same goals pursued by his predecessor, and at times - think bombing Afghanistan - the means used don't seem to be very different either. Alas, the likelihood of significant changes with regard to copyright policies seems minimal, as Professor Boyle points out :
«In some places, citizens and consumers will probably benefit, simply because optimising for the interests of two economic blocs rather than one is likely to give us a slightly more balanced, and less technology-phobic, set of rules. And perhaps the administration will go further. But recent actions make me doubt that this is the case.
First, the administration's messages about the so-called copyright czar have left little doubt that it is the content industry that is going to be commanding the cossacks. (Would you really want to be called a "czar"? We don't have a patent tyrant, or an antitrust dictator, so why a copyright czar? But I digress) The goal of the law that created this position is simple. It is to give unprecedented high-level governmental representation to the interests of a particular set of industries, so they can, ahem, help ensure that other agencies, such as the Justice Department put the appropriate resources and zeal into prosecuting DVD pirates and handbag counterfeiters. One wouldn't want them to be confused about their priorities after all. (Even the Bush administration Justice Department, which historically thought nothing except gay marriage was constitutionally suspect, managed to perceive that this was a tad problematic if one believed in prosecutorial independence.) Obama isn't responsible for this silly law. But he does control who fills the position. So far as I can tell, the debate has now shifted to precisely how dogmatic the representation of intellectual property holders should be. The idea that intellectual property policy might actually require a balance between multiple interests, including some who are not rights holders, has apparently been abandoned. If a few thoughtful scholars such as Larry Lessig get caricatured in the process, well, what's the harm?»
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